COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

"In the future, everyone will have access to VA health care for fifteen minutes."

Monday, January 30, 2006

Why can't the Times understand the law?

Here's a graf from Philip Bobbitt's essay in the New York Times, "Why We Listen."

Nor was the fact that we knew the identities of two of the terrorists sufficient to thwart the attack the next day. But had we at the time cross-referenced credit card accounts, frequent-flyer programs and a cellphone number shared by those two men, data mining might easily have picked up on the 17 other men linked to them and flying on the same day at the same time on four flights. Such intelligence collection would not have been based on probable cause, and yet the presence of the hijackers in the country would have qualified them as "U.S. persons."

Ok, this guy's a professor at the University of Texas Law School. What am I missing, because this guy's characterization of "U.S. persons" seems flatly false.

For one thing, agents of foreign powers and members of violent sects not substantially composed of U.S. persons do not qualify as "U.S. persons."

Secondly, even absent that association (proven beyond doubt by the events of 9/11), their mere presence does not establish them as "U.S. persons" for the purposes of the FISA law. You have to be a citizen or permanent resident.

you're spot on, I just had my first "jerry maguire" moment that related to the NYT and how they have lost their journalistic sobriety, because they're inebriated on Bush-Bashing,

I stopped reading the NYT a couple of years ago, candidly I can't recall what outraged me, but it's been a slow, steady decline for them ever since the Marc Rich pardon,

Moving on .org, I decided to pick up the NYT the night before the 3rd election in Iraq, and I really lost it, I suppose the years of frustration just started to pour out me, because I am a true centrist, I voted for Bill Clinton twice and supported Gore in 2000, but 9/11 is such a terrifying wake-up call, that any reasonalbe person recognzies that if national security concerns are not taken seriously, and the threats honestly assessed, then the unthinkable will occur, and from that point onward I have no idea what our world looks like anymore...so....I began writing about the Iraq election and the NYT coverage of same, and 15,000 words later, I have a first draft of an essay that you may enjoy some parts of...I also was just introduced to the Blog-World by watching a CSPAN Saturday morning show about three weeks on blogs...prior, had never been on one, or knew much of anything about them....I am now regularly reading thoughtful blogs (from both sides of the political asile) and just tonight by accident came across a way to set up a blog for myself - and I posted my draft essay, and invtie you to take a look,

thank you for doing your part, and I truly believe that this blogoshpere paradigm can the citizens of our great nation reclaim the founding principles of "republicanism"...i'm wwww.beingjohnadams.blogspot.com

I just came across your blog and wanted to drop you a note telling you how impressed I was with the information you have posted here.I also have a web site & blog about credit cards for bad credit so I know what I'm talking about when I say your site is top-notch! Keep up the great work!